I'm Sorry
by aftersh0cks
Summary: If Brambleclaw won't talk to me, I'll confront him about why I lied and how much I want to apologize. Contains Sunrise spoilers and upper-borderline T content. Oneshot.


**a/n** so it's some sappy teen angsty romance that I randomly wrote. There's a hint of a ... scene in it, if it makes you uncomfortable, don't read. It's barely noticable, though.

* * *

Why? Why did Hollyleaf have to go and tell everyone? It's not her fault. She wasn't the one that chose to be born with a father from another Clan. It wasn't Leafpool and Crowfeather's fault, either. Sure, they fell in love, but it's all over. Now Hollyleaf is dead, never to return again. Leafpool's devastated, even though she was a traitor, she was still her daughter.

But the one thing that's most important to me is that Brambleclaw hates me now. I've lied, I've done so much wrong and only relied on the hope that me and Leafpool's secret would never have been found out and Brambleclaw's love.

I overestimated. He thinks I abandoned him. He thinks I don't love him. I do, I love him with all my heart. We just never had kits. There is nothing wrong with that.

I've been trying to apologize to him, but he organizes patrols and puts him on them whenever I come near. He never puts me and him together. Brambleclaw has moved himself to the other side of the warriors den. He has distanced himself from me.

It's heartbreak.

Finally, I see him standing there for the first time in a quarter moon. It seems so long. I can tell that he has just gone out on a patrol, more cats are sleeping now, and he's about to eat so he has no excuse to run away. I grab a vole from the fresh-kill pile and pad over to him.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" I ask him.

Brambleclaw is silent, so I take that as a yes. But I notice he turns his head away, just slightly.

"I – I need…" I take a breath. "Brambleclaw, I need to talk to you. Somewhere else. Please, Brambleclaw!" I nearly beg him, seeing that he has angled his head more.

He takes the last bite of his robin and stands up. For a second I fear that he will just walk away without caring about what I say, but then he glares at me. "Where, then?"

The breath I hadn't realized I had been holding shoots out of me. "Just… follow me."

Near the lake, I stop. It's somewhere that I know that there are no patrols here for a while. I open my mouth, but Brambleclaw cuts me off.

"You don't love me anymore." The sentence hangs in the air for seconds after it had been stated, more like an unasked question than anything. And finally, I answer.

"Brambleclaw—"

He cuts me off again. "You don't, do you. Tell the truth."

"I do love you, Brambleclaw! I love you more than anything," I tell him.

He drops his head, and it is only then I realize how fiercely he has been staring into my eyes, the green meeting the amber. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. "Then why did you lie to me? You lied, you said they were our kits."

The day is ending, the stars popping up, the night becoming darker, shadows stretching out and the sun has disappeared from the sky in a great ball of fire.

"I lied because I'm loyal to Leafpool," I say, nearly quieter. "She wanted to protect her kits. They're still ours, in a way. I just didn't tell you because she said 'Tell no one.'"

At this, Brambleclaw springs up, anger in his eyes, his face, and his voice. "No one except the 'father' of the kits!" he spits at me. "I thought you were the one, but if you're not going to—"

"I'm sorry," I murmur. "Brambleclaw, I never meant to hurt you. You belong with me, can't you see that?" Quieter, I say, "I love you, and I'll never stop loving you, even when we're in StarClan."

This seems to calm him down.

"I know," he says, and then rasps his tongue across my cheek. "Why don't we sleep under the stars today?"

This almost makes me laugh. "I'm not a WindClan cat," I protest.

But then I see him trotting across to a tree, and then I understand. I curl up beside him, and I know that no apologies have to be done anymore. I feel soft fur on my back, and know that everything will be fine. He'll have kits of his very own now, I think as some weight lifts off me.

As we walk back to the camp the next morning, we're almost as good as we left off before this whole deceit happened.

Two moons later, he will have three kits.

Jayfeather and Lionblaze will have cousins.

They will explain everything to me, the prophecy.

Even though my kits will not be part of the three, I am fine with that.

They will be ours, me, Squirrelflight and my mate, Brambleclaw.


End file.
